I know this is late. It was done three days ago, when it was supposed to be done, except I kept thinking that I was going to make it longer. Thing is, I'm not at home, so I don't have the summary I wrote out, and quite honestly, I don't exactly remember what was supposed to happen next. So I really couldn't add any more to the chapter.

Anyway, this'll be the last chapter for… a while. No guarantees, but I'd say a week and a half. We're out of town this weekend for a funeral and I'm missing school, so aside from not being home for half a week, I'll have mountains of homework awaiting me when I get back. I don't know if I'll ever get caught up. So I apologize for the break, but there's really nothing I can do about it.

Disclaimer: it all belongs to J.K. Rowling. And guess what? I'm not J.K. Rowling. News flash, I know.

Chapter 33

We Will Defeat Him

Harry looked down at the bed in grim silence. Jorden lay there, unconscious. His bloody shirt had been carefully removed, leaving his lacerated torso, arms, and chest exposed. Harry winced as a healer bent down and began rubbing a thick, goopy liquid into the cuts and Jorden stirred fitfully.

Mr. Weasley, Tonks, and Lupin were conversing urgently in the corner of the room. Harry caught only snatches of their conversation.

"…don't know what hit them…"

"How could it have been a trap?"

"…wonder if he'll be…"

"Mad-Eye and Sturgis, Remus… Both of them, dead."

"…devastating blow…"

Harry, standing between Ron and Charlie, returned his attention to the still body lying in the bed, and he remembered Jorden's face as it usually was—smiling, full of life and laughter. He sat down heavily in a chair. "What's wrong with him?" he asked a healer anxiously.

The healer raised his eyebrows in a you-cannot-possibly-be-that-stupid sort of look and didn't answer.

"I mean, are those wounds magical or will they heal in time?"

"They're magical," Lupin said grimly, joining them at his bedside. "We'd best leave. There's nothing we can do."

For a moment, his consoling hand rested on Harry's shoulder, and he then gave Ron a little nudge towards the door.

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"The map wasn't real. It was a myth that had the Death Eaters seeking after it ravenously, and so they kidnapped Bill for it. And they must have found out after that it was a legend and set traps where it was rumored to be."

Kingsley sat in a chair with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. His face was wrought with pain. His wounds were healing, but that was not what weighed on him.

Professor McGonagall and Remus Lupin sat quietly on either side of him. Tears shone openly in her eyes, but Lupin gazed on in grim, stoic silence.

They all sat in a large circle of chairs in the meeting room of the Order. The room was unnaturally silent, save for the sniffling tears of a few. Harry sat between Ron and Mr. Weasley, listening to Kingsley's tale. Hermione had arrived that evening after hearing what had happened, and she sat on Ron's other side.

Kingsley fell quiet, and a grave, mournful silence filled the room for a few moments. Then, cutting through the heavy air like a knife, a hoarse voice said, "We can't send our Order on suicide missions."

It was Charlie. His face was hard and etched with a soft, anguished grief that seemed to be reflected on everyone else's countenance as well.

"It wasn't a suicide mission," Mr. Weasley said quietly. "At least, we didn't think it was."

"It turned out to be," Charlie said. "We lost two men, and for what? For a legend, a myth that we had no real verification on."

"We had verification."

"A couple of old documents," Hestia Jones sneered. "It must have been a myth invented by the Ministry centuries ago to keep an enemy—dark wizards, maybe—occupied and distracted from something."

"Elphias," Professor McGonagall said, "you're our historian. Is Hestia's theory possible?"

The aged wizard considered it a moment, and then he nodded slowly. "About the time the documents were written, England was trying to fight of the wizard Vercingetorix, a French master of the Dark Arts, quite the equivalent of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, if rather lacking in supporters. It is very possible that while organizing their resistance, the myth was invented to get Vercingetorix distracted. Likely, even, I'd say."

There was silence for a moment, and then Charlie said, "We owe each other more than that. We can't go chasing stories. Two of our number have died needlessly, and one's barely alive."

"That is the price," Lupin interjected, "for fighting Voldemort."

A murmur swept the room.

"Sturgis and Alastor knew what they were getting into. They were both part of the old Order, and they saw the horrors and atrocities that Voldemort and his supporters committed, but they didn't back down. They were willing to sacrifice for what they knew was right." Lupin stood slowly and beckoned around the room. "Everyone here knew the dangers of joining the Order, knew that Lord Voldemort's supporters would be after his blood, knew that someday he might be asked to give up his life."

He gazed around at them all. "And yet, you're still here, even after you've seen what can happen. That means that you care." He held up his hand in a clenched fist. "You care about defeating Voldemort, care about doing what you know is right, despite how bleak our prospects look."

"We can't beat them," someone whispered. Harry was not sure whose voice it was, but it seemed to permeate the air, cutting them all deeply.

Lupin turned towards the source of the voice. "Lord Voldemort has everything on his side," he said quietly. "He has numbers, he has strategy, he has Dark Magic, he has supporters and leverage and might that we cannot possibly imagine."

He stepped into the center of the floor, looking each person in the eyes. "But we have one thing that he does not have, one thing that he cannot take away from us, one thing that will be our triumphing factor." His eyes pierced everyone else's as he gazed into them, unflinching and powerful. "We have love."

"Voldemort does not understand love," he said softly. "Proof of that sits before us." He gestured towards Harry. "Lily died to save her son, and that unconditional love saved him. Voldemort underestimated its power, a power so ancient, so deep, so innate that he thought it inconsequential, and he paid dearly for it.

He held up his hand, spacing his index finger and his thumb an inch apart. "We were this close to beating him last time. He barely escaped with his life. But this time, we are more organized. We were ready, we had the Order revived within an hour of Voldemort's return. We know his weakness. And this time we will defeat him. We will defeat him."

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